20 An Omen
~TIEN LYN~
Lady Chen Guang's complaints about Chong Ho soon took another turn. 'That merchant' was never happy with her efforts, and even tried to thwart her on occasion. Why Chong Ho would do that, Tien Lyn could not fathom, but she did not truly mind.
The one thing that even Dew-on-a-petal did not find lacking was Chong Ho's obvious wealth. After the meagre accoutrements on the road, Tien Lyn was once again delighting in the finer things in her fiancé's house. It was pleasant to have long sheets of silk fitted to her. Silk in the colour of plum blossoms for the chemise. Silk in the colour of the ripe plums for her skirts and oversleeves. And, of course, silver brocade for the vest. The maids made circles with pins and needles under the watchful eyes of the tailor, and she loved her dress in advance.
So, apparently, did her mother. She let out an audible breath as Tien Lyn turned around to show it off.
"It is perfect from the back!"
Then she muttered, "Why, why rescue us to give you to 'that merchant'?!"
Tien Lyn actually mused about it for a while now. "Mother? Have you considered that it was arranged to remove the concern for my fate from your mind? I do not presume to guess the Mages' plans, but I feel that it is your fate that they want to unfold unhindered. Mine was clear to them."
"Nonsense!" Dew-on-a-petal scoffed.
"Did not you spend as much time intervening on Zha Yao's behalf as you did on planning the most perfect wedding ceremony ever to be held in Sutao?" Tien Lyn smiled.
"Avenging my husband is my first duty as a widow," Dew-on-a-petal said primly and cast a suspicious glance at the maids.
"When they put you on the silk screens a thousand years from now, you would be a nameless Faithful Lady? Is that really how you see yourself, Mother?"
Dew-on-a-petal shook her head slightly, "Let us try the headdress on you. Girl!"
The maid, startled by the exclamation from taking in the hem, rose awkwardly from her knees and stumbled to get a lacquered box. Tien Lyn tapped her foot impatiently. The box was the only thing they brought that remained unopened.
The jewelry missed by Zha Yao's brigands was in the family for generations, and she remembered every piece. But she had never seen the headdress that the maid arranged on the silk pillow to present to her.
There was a comb of intertwined flowers to go above Tien Lyn's forehead. Edged with strings of pink pearls it was not as large as such decorations often became, but it did not detract from its obvious value. It also flattered her vanity because it wouldn't hide her hair.
The two long pins that went with the comb, on the other hand, were oversized. They had to be to support the heavy cascades of filigree butterflies, leaves and more flowers. It would weigh her head down but would frame her face beautifully. Beauty demands sacrifice.
"I ordered it back in Xichon," Dew-on-a-petal said softly while Tien Lyn fingered the silver pendants.
The headdress had been intended for my other wedding, one to a man of significance, perhaps even a scion of the Imperial family, and it looks the part.
The maid started to sweat as she kneeled with the pillow in front of her. Tien Lyn accidentally touched her hand and paused. It felt way too hot.
"Are you ill?" she asked the girl.
"It's just a summer cold, My Lady," the girl whispered, throwing a furtive look at her mother.
Tien Lyn did not have the heart to send the poor thing away. Charity brings good luck, and, Ancestors, I need some now!
It turned out to be more than a simple summer cold.
Before the week was out, the maid got shakes so bad, that she dropped a basket of flowers that were to be inspected by acolyte Sayewa of the Temple of Serene Joy. The faery lifted her spidery palm to interrupt her instructions to Tien Lyn and her mother: "I must apologize, human-friends. This requires my immediate attention."
She zipped towards the maid like a pochard on a pond.
"How long have you been sick, child?" The girl started crying instead of responding and swayed on her feet. The faery helped her to the ground and unfastened her collar. The odd fingers palpated around the girl's neck.
"Have you been to the Seaward?" the faery furrowed all of her four brows, one over each inquisitive gray eye. "Scratch that. When have you been to the Seaward?"
"My fiancé sailed five days ago," the girl confessed, twisting to look at Tien Lyn imploringly. "I am sorry Mistress. I've climbed the wall to go see him."
Dew-on-a-petal pursed her lips. "Throw her back there then. Trash belongs with trash."
Acolyte Sayewa counter-commanded her. "This cannot be done. One moment."
The faery rose up to a height that was not particularly impressive for a faery, but still a head taller than Tien Lyn, and sang a short phrase. A dust devil came towards her from the far corner of the courtyard like a puppy and lifted the maid up into the air. The servants who had been ready to carry out Dew-on-a-petal's order to toss the maid out retreated before the faery's magic.
The acolyte picked up the flower basket. Her elongated head swivelled to survey the courtyard like an owl's.
"Ah, yes. In here." The faery crossed the yard towards a lean-on used for the garden tools. The dust devil obediently carried the maid's floating body to her.
Dew-on-a-petal moved on her own two feet, a quarrelsome look on her face. Tien Lyn trotted after the other women.
The faery remained oblivious. She emptied the shed and covered it with flowers from the basket. Her pet dust devil deposited the maid on the ground within it.
"I will place wards. I will purify. If anyone else comes down with fever, I must know. Immediately," the faery said. One of her eyes turned to Dew-on-a-petal just in time to stay more objections. "No, Mistress, I will not have the girl carried through the city. She must be isolated here. Warded."
Dew-on-a-petal opened her mouth one more time, but the faery's four unblinking pupil-less eyes bore into her, their gray darkening like thunderclouds. Sayewa compensated for her short stature by putting more meat on her bones than the other faeries. She planted her hands on her hips, tilted her head stubbornly forward and advanced on Dew-on-a-petal until she backed off.
Tien Lyn closed her mouth because having it hung ajar was impolite.
The plump faery reverted to looking docile so fast that she was not even sure the standoff had happened, "If you wish to do more, Mistress, send for a healer from the Seaward, the one called Demure Yu. I heard that he healed this disease at least twice."
She picked a perfect rosebud out of her tight bun to add to her arrangement when Dew-on-a-petal finally had found her voice. She did not stinge on scorn, "What use is a charlatan from the dockside in the household teaming with the holy priestesses? We already have one too many lowlifes here!"
An accusatory finger pointed at the maid, and the look she gave Sayewa was only slightly less disdainful. "If this healing is beyond your abilities, Acolyte Sayewa, I will send for one of the Serene Sisters."
"As you wish, Mistress," the acolyte clasped her hands in front of her. But when the other woman turned to leave, a spark lit up her eyes. Fluffy yellow flowers popped on her brows and on the shorter strands that escaped the bun to dangle in front of her face. She brushed both the flowers and the hair away impatiently.
"The Sisters never go to the Seaward, Mistress. It is left to the acolytes. This affliction started in Shantong early in the spring, and now we have an outbreak here. See this?" The acolyte pulled the collar down to show a dark ugly swelling at the base of the maid's neck. "It's the mark of the Inscrutable Contagion. It resists our healing."
Dew-on-a-petal looked scandalized. "All the more reasons to put the tramp back with the sailors where she belongs!"
Acolyte Sayewa sprouted so many yellow buds at once that her loose tresses began to bristle. "Mistress, the sickness is not from wanton conduct!"
Dew-on-a-petal turned her back on the acolyte and glided off to get the second opinion.
To her chagrin, the four serene sisters took Sayewa's side with regards to isolating and warding the sick girl. They added more purifying to Sayewa's plan. Everything the maid had touched, they said. Every room she'd passed through. Every person she'd talked to.
Chen Guang had to content herself with the Serene Sisters overruling the acolyte's recommendations on account of the beggars' healer.
Serene Mother Weynala's face turned darker than precious ebony the moment the man was brought up. Demure Yu was a charlatan, she screeched, and it would not be long before he is captured and tried for his mockery of the sacred faery rites. She upbraided Sayewa for repeating superstitious nonsense and sent her back to the Temple.
